Natural gas is usually supplied to consumers by the following two methods: a method in which natural gas is directly supplied to consumers through natural gas pipelines and a method in which liquefied natural gas (LNG) is supplied to consumers by a tanker truck. The latter is commonly employed to supply natural gas to a remote site where natural gas pipelines are not installed.
However, this method has a problem in that it is necessary to install a separate stationary storage tank at the remote site and to periodically charge the stationary storage tank with LNG.
At present, the only way to supply LNG to an island area is to use an LNG bunker shuttle or LNG tank container. However, this method has a problem in that there is no ship dedicated to transporting LNG tank containers, and in that installation of dedicated cargo handling facilities in a dock and port maintenance are required, making the transportation process complicated and causing cost increase and deterioration in transport reliability.